


Off Track

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e13 T.R.A.C.K.S., F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 11:30:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1467880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Based on the psychological profile I created for my cover identity there’s a fifty-four percent chance she would engage in meaningless sex with a stranger while on this trip. That number increases to seventy-two if she’s just had a fight with her father.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off Track

Grant stands frozen just inside the doorway. Coulson and Simmons aren’t in their seats. They’re not anywhere in the train car. 

They _could_ know. They could have already gone for Skye and Fitz in the luggage car. They could also have been captured.

His eyes fall on the far door. He can see the shadows of bodies through the small window. Several of them. As the door opens, he ducks back and turns into the next car. A body collides with his as he steps into it.

“Oh! I’m-” Simmons. She looks up at him with wide eyes behind her glasses. She looks like she’s been crying. “Excuse me,” she says uneasily and tries to move past him, back to her seat, back to the car he’s fairly certain is filling up with enemy agents.

He grabs her arm and pushes her halfway back into the tiny bathroom. “Are you hurt?”

She winces and tries to pry his fingers off. “No! I’m crying over my mother’s ashes!” She tries to hold up the urn but stops when her gaze lands on his shoulder. “But you are! What -”

He hears the door on the next car slide open.

“We’ve been made,” he says tersely. “We gotta move.”

She doesn’t argue, for which he’s grateful. He’s injured and outgunned in a confined space. He is not liking their odds and he needs to _think_.

Halfway through the sleeping car he spots a cluster of people just around the corner. One of them is the blonde he thought he knocked out earlier. He backs up, pushing Simmons as he goes.

“What is it?” she asks.

“In here,” he says and pulls her to May’s room. It’s thankfully empty. Of course now there’s the problem of having nowhere to go. He locks the door behind them.

“Let me see that,” Simmons orders. She drops the urn on the small dresser and tugs at his jacket. He tries to shake her off.

“We don’t have time for that now.” He tries his comm again and she grudgingly steps away to try hers. He’s not even getting static. “Anything?” he asks her. She shakes her head.

“They saw you?” she asks.

“Yeah.” That means there’s almost no chance of him walking out of here and getting to safety. “And we’re still over an hour from the next station.”

She’s watching him, kneading her hands while she waits for him to come up with the plan. He appreciates it. He knows he hasn’t done as much for her when the problems they faced were within her purview.

He considers sending her out there on her own. They haven’t seen her with him as far as he knows. She might be able to make it back to her seat and ride things out safely. Or they might have made Coulson too and they’re scouring the train for the both of them.

Several sets of footsteps pass by. Grant gestures for Simmons to move to the far corner of the room while he bends his ear to the door. He can barely make out the voices over the noise of the train.

“Do you have them?” the blonde woman asks.

“No,” a man says. “The woman jumped off the roof and another jumped out the back but the one you let get away was ahead of us.”

“He must be hiding. Check everywhere he could possibly be. Say there’s a lost child.”

Grant steps back, considering his options.

“Do you have a plan?” Simmons asks behind him.

Men are walking past outside. They’re splitting up to search. Maybe he can fight his way past the ones staying behind to search the rooms. If they can get to the end of the train they can jump like Coulson and May but then where will that leave Skye and Fitz? Or are they already off the train? 

There’s a knock at a door down the hall followed by muted conversation.

Simmons comes around to face him. “ _Do you have a plan?_ ” she asks again.

“Get under the bed,” he orders.

“What?”

“ _Get under the bed_.”

She looks from him to the small space and back. There’s a decent chance she won’t be able to fit and he can see her wondering where he’ll go.

“I’m going to fight them off. If I give them enough trouble, they probably won’t even search the room.”

She shakes her head. He does not need this right now. He puts his hands on her shoulders. “Simmons, you can do this. Just get under there and when the train stops -”

There’s a knock at the door. Grant curses under his breath and moves to force Simmons under the bed if he has to, only to find her unbuttoning her blouse.

“Based on the psychological profile I created for my cover identity there’s a fifty-four percent chance she would engage in meaningless sex with a stranger while on this trip. That number increases to seventy-two if she’s just had a fight with her father.” She tosses her glasses beside the urn and pulls off his hat. She’s blushing furiously when she says, “They won’t be able to recognize you if you’re busy doing … other things.”

He wants to tell her that this isn’t some crappy spy film - it’s real life and they’re in real danger of being shot by real bad guys - but his brain hits a speed bump when he catches a glimpse of her lacy bra. The phrase _sexy librarian_ flits through his head. It’s stamped out a moment later by an insistent pounding at the door.

The train takes a turn and whoever’s knocking falls against the door. Grant reaches out to steady Simmons even as he winces; the sun is reflecting off the vanity mirror. His heart drops. There’s almost nothing he can do to her on the bed that will keep his face from being reflected.

There’s a scraping at the lock on the door. Grant grabs Simmons under the arms and sets her on the dresser, right in front of the mirror. She lets out an _eep_ of protest and her muscles tense under his touch.

“Try to act like you enjoy this,” he says. She nods and closes her eyes as someone outside yells for a key.

Grant kisses her. He can tell she’s forcing herself to relax into it, still utterly conscious of what they’re doing. It’s better than nothing though.

He kisses his way down her neck and palms her breast through her bra. She gasps. Her knees jerk on reflex and pull his legs closer so he can feel the heat of her through his pants. He responds instantly to the sensation. One of her ankles slides up the back of his thigh. His knees brace uncomfortably against the wooden dresser.

Her hands are in his hair. She pushes him lower. He bites her gently. He can taste the sweat on her skin and feel her heart pounding in her chest. She jumps a little and curls around him. Her breasts momentarily sag against his hair before she pulls back. One of her hands fists in his jacket.

“Oh!” The men. They’ve opened the door.

Simmons runs a hand around the back of his head from ear to ear, holding him at her stomach. There’s little chance the men will pay much attention to him, not with Simmons’ breasts to look at.

His fingers are already at the waist of her pants, the button undone. He can’t quite remember when that happened but now uses the excuse to tug the zipper down and kiss his way lower as he drags the pants down her hips.

“ _Scusi!_ ” a strangled voice says. There’s a lot of hurried shuffling and then the door slides shut.

Simmons’ hand slowly releases his jacket, smoothing flat over his injured shoulder.

She was hiding it from view.

Smart.

“I should take a look at that now,” she says. “I doubt they’ll be back anytime soon.”

Grant picks himself up and steps awkwardly aside, turning towards the door. If she thinks it’s to give her the chance to put herself back together, all the better. He needs a few seconds to himself to picture dead bodies and that one time he saw Garrett naked.

“Take off your shirt,” she says and all his effort goes out the window. It’ll only get worse if she starts touching him.

“We should go,” he says aloud. Inside his head he’s replaying the Red Asphalt videos from his offensive driving course. The SHIELD version was a lot more graphic than the one they showed in high school. It’s enough to get him presentable.

“But your arm -”

He turns on her. “Eventually one of them is going to replay that image enough times to notice there was a guy about to go down on you -” He sucks in a breath. He has _really_ got to stop thinking about that.

Simmons looks at anything except him.

“Look. I’m sorry. I’m just saying, you bought us some time but that’s all. We’ve gotta make the most of it.”

Her face is bright red but she manages to look him straight in the eye. It makes him feel like shit.

“So we find the others?” she asks.

“No. May and Coulson got off. That’s what we’re doing.” He moves to the door, listening for anyone outside.

“But Fitz and Skye!”

He holds up a hand to shush her. Still no noise outside. “They would have been the first to know the comms went down. They probably locked themselves in the luggage car, which makes them a lot safer than we are here. We’re going out to the left and then all the way to the end of the train.”

Simmons pales.

“Yes,” he says, “we’re going to jump. It’s no worse than jumping out of an airplane. We jump, we get back to the Bus, and we regroup with Coulson and May. Then we come back for Fitz and Skye. Easy.” And hopefully get a cold shower in somewhere along the way. “If we run into trouble on the way to the dining car, I’ll handle it. You go on without me, understand?”

“So you’ve done this before?”

It takes him a moment to realize she means jumping off a train. “No. But I’m the one in charge of risk assessment and a train? Not nearly as bad as a plane. Just remember to roll when you hit the ground.”

She still looks a little queasy so he gives her an encouraging smile.

“You can do this, Jemma. I promise.” He gently slides the door open to check for anyone outside. The hall is clear. “Let’s go.”


End file.
